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I had a perfectly wonderful good decent acceptable post pulled together that was going to go up today, only all this other stuff happened that was MUCH better to talk about!

First of all I have been honored with a distinction of unequalled measure.  Witchypoo from over at Psychicgeek, has bestowed the coveted, (I’m guessing, cause gee, it’s really neato), Charming Award on me.  Yup.  It’s right here on me… trust me.  No, not really, you should probably never do that… at least with anything important.

Aaaaanywho, there are directions with it to confuse my mushy little brain astound and amaze us all.  Prepare to applaud, whilst I exersize my copying and pasting skills.

Charming Award!

Charming Award!

This award is given to the writers of blogs that “are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

Now, I am going to name my eight peeps and you really should stand and applaud.  Go ahead, nobody’s looking!  NO!  A golf clap will NOT do.  These kind souls deserve better than that!  I want to be able to hear it in south Texas.

That’s better.  (Cause I know you’re doing it, right?)

Ahem,

Angie of Big Hair Envy fame

Janet From The Planet of Janet

Tink at Pickled Beef

Kori at See Kori Rant

Predo at Spartacus Wore A Skirt

Karen at The Rocking Pony

Jean at Working Momma 247

Marylin at A Little Space For Me

THEN, as if this humongous privilege wasn’t enough, good ol’ Angie of Big Hair Envy tells me that she has drawn my name as one of the two winners of her “Pay it Forward” contest.

I am delighted about this and it’s going to be so much fun!

Here’s the exact, (cut and paste), wording of the famous Angie, herself, explaining the details of Pay It Forward.  It’s really quite easy.

I’m going to Pay It Forward to two commenter who leave me a message saying they would like to participate. I will randomly select the winners, and each will receive a gift from me! YAY! The only catch is that YOU must Pay It Forward on YOUR blog. Easy. Peasy.

Stay tuned for an episode of “Stupid Criminals” next time!

Oh. No. That’s not right…. Meme.   That’s what I meme to say. (HA!  That’s what I MEME to say!) I am telling you, you do NOT want to hear me sing.  It’s worse than my bad puns.

Ree, over at Hotfessional tagged me for a meme and, conformist that I am, I must comply!  The rules are:

No running around the pool, one at a time on the diving board, eat all your vegetables before you get dessert, and finally, do your homework before you go outside and play.

Comply, or face the consequences.

Now this is going to be a list of seven things about me and I will be tagging seven of you guys whose blogs I love to read.  Then, like the good little girls and boys you are, YOU will be doing the same.

Yes you will! I can find you, you know.  Ha ha ha!  I jest!  Maybe.

1. I love when my 19 year old daughter actually needs me to help her with a regular life problem that she hasn’t dealt with before.  I went with her to the tire place this morning for her to get a defective tire replaced.  It was warranted by the place and all, but she wanted… backup, I guess.  We had a nice time, which is a weird thing to say about going to a tire store.  Yesterday I showed her how to check the oil in her car, and was mortified that she hadn’t already been shown.

2. I am horrible about starting projects and never finishing them.

3. I absolutely loved being pregnant.

4. But not as much as having a baby.  Well, not having the baby, but having already had the baby… you know.

5. I would give almost anything to have the time and money for John and I to go to visit my brother, sister-in-law and nephew in Italy.

6. I love to cook new dishes and am continually frustrated by being short ONE INGREDIENT.  It’s like Satan is writing the damn recipes and has inventoried my kitchen beforehand.

7. I would give just about anything to hear from some of the people that I can see check in on my blog on a very regular basis and never comment.  Not because I’m a comment whore, yes I am, but because I’m so very curious about who they are.

So there you have it.  That’s about all I can come up with and now the game will continue with me passing this on to:

1. Noe Noe Girl

2. Witchypoo at Psychicgeek

3. Janet at From the Planet of Janet

4. Jean at Working Momma 247

5. Karen at The Rocking Pony

6. Predo at Spartacus wore a skirt!

7. SSG at Confessions of a (Sometimes!) Serendipitous Girl

There it is.  Whoop it out!

Little bratty baby brother, Cam has hooked up with Scribble on Everything to reproduce his phenomenally popular Periodic Table of Typefaces into a wall decal.   Click on the pic of it at the Scribble website to see the different colors it comes in.  I myself like the “chocolate brown”.  Cam is going to be getting a little piece of the profits from the sale of them.  Go!  Buy!  My nephew needs college fund money!

There are going to be other things in the works here soon also if the wall decals aren’t your style  Among them posters and some nifty leather book jackets with the table printed across the entire thing.

I was sitting in the office, (a.k.a. riffraff room), when I overheard Henrietta talking to Tanya as she rolled her into the living room and, apparently, Ellen was on tv.

“You know, it’s such a shame she decided to become a lesbian… she was such a good actress.”

For a split second you could hear a pin drop as both Tanya and I digested this and then we just fell out and must have laughed and snickered for a good two minutes.

When I was on Twitter the other day I ran across a website I really like that Timebandit put up.  He says he can’t take the credit for finding it since a friend of his in Seattle sent it to him.  However he gets credit for it from me since I don’t know his friend in Seattle.  Check it out!

Witchypoo over at Psychicgeek linked me up with Schmutzie, who was so inspiring I made a few vows to myself.  Go read her post and watch the video on her site.

I’m thinking maybe I can stop trying so hard to write only light heartedly and get a little more gritty from time to time.  At least I’m trying to convince myself that no one would run away screaming if I did more than just occasionally bitch and get pissy about things when they go wrong.  I tend to rely too much on finding the humor in whatever situation I am plunged in.  Cause, really?  That’s not always possible.  And then?  I’m left with nothing to write about.

So now I guess you’re expecting me to be grateful for the fact that I live with two teenage girls and change the shitty diapers of a little old lady daily…  Heh!  Yeah.  Blog fodder!

Apparently there are some of you who are impressed by the fact that my rambling… goes off in so many directions.  You know, I go on about such differing stuff in the same post.

Are you sure this is a good thing and not just a sign of, well, at the best, disorganization, and at the worst, dementia?

I have to admit that I feel like it just comes from being really, really disorganized.  Not so much around here, but in my leetle head.  You should see me write.  Or rather I should see YOU.  I am intensely curious.

With me there is usually a lot of cutting and pasting and deleting and rewording.  It seems like not much flows that doesn’t get a major overhaul before it’s done.  Oh, and I never title it until it’s finished because it’s so strange by the time it gets done the original title never really fits anymore.

Is it like that for you?  I mean whether or not you blog, cause I have a few readers that I don’t think do it, but I could be wrong and they just don’t want me to find them.  Yeah.  That’s probably it.

Well I have just reread that and decided that I won’t go back and fix anything except spelling mistakes.  And believe me when I tell you that if I didn’t check for that you could come away not knowing that I said anything at all.

So please let me hear from you and tell me how do you do it?  And no.  This is not a cop-out on a post.  I really am curious.

Well, the good news is… I’m not dead.  I have just been on hiatus, hanging out with Mither and Pop.  They are down visiting and we are having a grand time.  We don’t have any big projects planned for this trip and so it has all been fairly relaxing.

While I have been relaxing a bit, it seems like I have fallen further and further behind on reading my blogs.  I am sooo sorry!  I have not forgotten you people and will get back soon!  At least I will be able to see when I begin trying to get caught up!

I have gone to the optometrist and gotten a prescription for my eyeballs.  Would you believe that my first pair of glasses is going to be bifocals?  How blind am I?  Well, I’ll tell you.  My distance is .25 and my closer up in your face is 1.75.  No.  I don’t know what that means either.  But I know I have to have bifocals.  I am getting the line-less kind, with a far, mid and close range seeing area.  I wasn’t so interested in seeing mid range as interested in NOT looking like I had on bifocals.  Did I mention that this is my FIRST PAIR OF GLASSES?  I was a little staggered.

Speaking of staggered…  I have a… family(?) situation that smacks of reality tv, like nothing else.  Think smutty, like maybe, Temptation Island meets The Girls Next Door.  Only no one is that attractive.

You may remember me referring to Auntie-poo, before.  She is Mither’s sister and my favorite person in the world, (Mither is sitting here insisting that I make it understood, except for her.).  Well, she has a son, my cousin, actually, who has a wife that is a true piece of work.  My cousin came home from work a month or so ago and his slutty wife told him she wanted him to move out that she had been communicating with a guy who is in prison and she loved him and they were going to get married.  As soon as he gets out of prison.  Come to find out this is going to have to be a June wedding, 2009.

June weddings are nice.

Anyway, getting back to my cousin, he has three children with this chick and was heartbroken enough.  She then proceeded to tell him that years ago right after their last child was born she was corresponding with another guy on the internet and they decided to meet at a Jack in the Box.  She told him that they had sex in the bathroom there.  At Jack in the Box.  When they met.  For the first time.

I can’t seem to wrap my leetle brain around this.  Maybe I’m not creative enough to think this “outside the box”. (Pardon the pun.)  But let’s consider this a minute:

1. When meeting for sex at Jack in the Box with a man that has never been met before does one just assume the restaurant facilities will be adequate?  Or does one hope the, ahem, gentleman has a van?

2.  In which restroom is the dirty deed carried out?  I mean Men’s or Women’s?  Miss Manners would definitely have something to say about this.  Or Emily Post.  If she wasn’t dead.

3.  If you are ensconced in a bathroom at Jack in the Box with your… lover, conquest, intended, slutmuffin, are you concerned with the type of paper towels offered?  I mean if it’s an upscale establishment with a roll of paper towels, that’s one thing.  You could roll those out on the floor and not have to worry about missing gaps in the coverage.

4.  Do you bring your own paper towels?  Oh dear.  Would this seem presumptuous?  Now, we wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression.

5. If left with only the folded paper towels that pull out of the dispenser one at a time, what do you do?  Move the party to the counter?  Sink?  Standing?

6.  Is there a lock on the interior of the door in the Jack in the Box restrooms?

7.  How long to you do “it”?  Too long and there will be people making racket outside the door and that will put a real damper on things.  Too short and your partner will be very unimpressed.

8.  What’s the rule about how old or big you can be to use a changing table?

9.  When it says “Family” on the door of a restroom, does it mean just relatives?

10. When it says “No shirt, no shoes.  No service” does it mean panties are optional.

11.  John wants to know, “Do you get fries with that?”

You know Witchypoo over at Psychicgeek has an advise column that I’ve been toying with different questions for here for a good while, now…  How do you think she’d answer,…..?  Hummmm.

Yes.  Me memed.  But, it’s been a while so I will lovingly embrace this, er, cough, cough, opportunity.  To be honest, I had no idea what kind of blog fodder I was going to yank out of my ass dig up for today anyway, so this was quite opportune.  Let’s see… I went in to the doc for my well woman exam yesterday… I know we ALL want to relive that!

Right.  Moving right along, then.

My dear friend, Angie, over at Big Hair Envy tagged me and I’m really glad she did.  There are rules and things to do, and of course, my favorite part, people to tag, so I’ll get to it.

First of all, THE RULES!

1. Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 random or, (in my case), weird facts about yourself.

3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and link to their blog.

4. Let each person know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

There.  So far so good.  Now here are seven trivial bits of crap priceless bits of information that are juicy nuggets of knowledge sure to help you win at that next game of Trivial Pursuit.

Ahem.

1.  I detest rudeness.  And yet, I am always worried that someone will perceive me as being rude.

2.  I had a tiny toy poodle when I was a little girl named Blossom.

3.  I am very short-waisted.

4.  I tend to be a grammar snob.  I silently correct everything in my leeetle head…and then look down my nose at the offender.

5.  I am a horrible speller.  A spelling snob should attack me!

6. I get around to dusting immediately when I notice someone has started writing in it.

7.  I think some of the cattier messages written in the dust on my furniture are a clear sign that the author HAS TOO MUCH TIME ON THEIR HANDS AND NEEDS TO PICK UP A FEW EXTRA CHORES, LIKE, OHHH I DUNNO, DUSTING!

OK, step number 3!  And the poor saps winners are:

Roger at A Screed in Time

SSG (not to be confused with MSG) at (Sometimes) Serendipitous Girl

Ree at My life as a Hotfessional

Tink over at Pickled Beef

Karen at The Rocking Pony

Tranny Head over at Law School Sucks (and So Do Lawyers)

Colleen at Wine Please

Now I’ve got to get around to contacting you guys!

OK, bear with me people!  This is not as painful as you might originally expect.  This brings us to step number 4 where I alert everyone to the awful truth that they have been memed and the good news is… envision drum roll… It’s not jury duty!  So buck up, and pass along the pain joy to your other good friends!  It’s the American way!

After my doctor’s appointment yesterday I spent the rest of my time away from the home with a girlfriend of mine helping her get her house ready for some guys to come and do some demolition.  Tearing out paneling, carpet and walls.  I am excited for her and also a little bit fearful.  I am worried that there’s going to be big trouble because she has nothing in writing saying when the re-construction will be over with, or even begun.  She trusts these people because her sister uses them and vouches for them, but contractors are FAMOUS for doing a super quick tear out for half the agreed upon amount and not ever returning to finish the job.  Or putting you off for months while you live in a shell of a house.

We will see.  I will pray.  Baby will grin.

Greetings all!  You may, (or, may not), have noticed that I have a new site in the old blog roll.  A Piece of My Mind is a site inhabited by Maria, an uber cool environmental conservationist  I “met” on Plurk a while back.  It really is inspiring to read about her own exploits in the area of trying new things and new ideas about all areas of conservation.

Have any of you ladies ever heard of a Diva Cup?  Maria discusses the use of one and the benefits of it.  Well, that little gizmo may just be the best thing since sliced bread.  Here is her first post on the “non-absorbent menstrual cup”.  The Diva Cup is also environmentally friendly because it is reusable and not disposable.  Read about it and tell me what you think.  If I had any need for it whatsoever I would have one ordered right now.  I had a thermal ablation several years ago and am done with periods.  (Yet, I still have ovaries, uterus, tubes, all my bits and pieces, and there was NO cutting.  Quite possibly the best thing ever for people who don’t want any more children and have a healthy reproductive package. It was an outpatient procedure with minimal recovery time.)   I am going to show the info on the Diva Cup to Kes and Keelan and see if either one will consider it.  They are both on Depo Provera shots due to their intense dislike of periods, but neither one wants to continue since the injection of hormones into their little bodies causes weight gain and huger than normal boobs.  I am thinking this new cup method may be the way to go.

Now, watch out for whiplash while I attempt to segue into another conservation area.  Just a very slight change in subject…

My hot water heater is at one end of my house and my dishwasher at the other.  (Still with me?)  I use it only when it is full and don’t use the “pot scrubber” cycle, just the “regular” one or the “light”.  The dishwasher repair guy said to cut down on the electric bill make sure the hot water is flowing in the kitchen sink before turning on the dishwasher so it doesn’t have to use so much electricity to heat the water to the proper temp before filling.  HOWEVER, I have to run water through my tap for a good couple of minutes to get the hot water to that end of the house.  My environmental question is this: In this case is it better to save electricity or water?

I gotta go over to Maria’s site and alert her to my concerns and see what she thinks…

Would you believe me if I said that I’ve been cooking, baking, and cleaning non-stop for the past few days?  No?  Well, that makes you a smart little cookie, doesn’t it?  If I had a gun to my head and some yo-yo telling me he’d shoot if I didn’t account for my time, I’d be a dead, domestic failure…rather than just a domestic failure.  I guess I’m saying things could always be worse.

I did manage to get a few things done today.  Sweeping the kitchen, breakfast area and utility room and doing my version of mopping to all of those freshly swept areas.  This entails walking around with a spray bottle of one sort of cleaner or another and a handy wipe, bending over spots, squirting, wiping, and moving on to the next spot.  Hey, don’t laugh.  My floor is clean…er.  I put things away left and right that have been slowly piling up for ages and cleaned the kitchen, and did several loads of laundry.

Got H on the bedpan not once, but two times for a grand total of two poos.  This normally throws her into a tailspin.  As I have discussed here before an unscheduled poo, or U. P. is a force of nature to contend with in this house.  She was reciting some panicky sounding prayers the second time I put her on, but other than that she handled it well.

John worked a “close” today and will be home about 11:00 or midnight.  He is enjoying his new boss and things are going smoothly so far.

Yesterday I asked him if he had chased any shoplifters through the parking lot lately and he replied, “No, I’m too fat and old for that.”  To which I immediately responded, “Your not fat.”  He groaned at me.  Seriously though, he’s getting older everyday, but he has lost a lot of weight lately.  He says he’s getting down to his “fighting weight”.  heh, heh, heh.

Pop is going into the hospital next Tuesday to have a defibrillator implanted just under the skin in his chest.  It is a battery operated thing that has two little wires that will be attached to his heart and if it stops beating or falters it will shock it into rhythm.  I don’t know much more than that about it.  Mom will ask more questions, I am sure.  I am wondering how long the batteries last and what changing them entails.

I guess that is all I’ve got to report at the moment.  I haven’t been doing much of anything or feeling like doing anything.  Very blah.  I haven’t even been Plurking.  I have also been neglecting reading the blogs!  And that is very bad of me, for shame and all that stuff!

I’m gonna try to get my shit together and get back here sooner!  Promise.  And I’ll try to have something to say.

Candy has zapped me with a meme of some complexity.  This is ever so much harder for me than the other ones I’ve done.  I am sure I can think of…something.  It’s a bucket list of sorts.  I am supposed to think of 8, (EIGHT), things I want to do before I die.  I have pretty much always lamented my lack of imagination in this department.  I am very much a “live in the moment” type of person and when something good happens it’s just a happy blessing that I wasn’t expecting, for the most part.  I don’t usually day dream about things that are too terribly far outside the norm.

Well, here go’s.

1. Travel with my family to Italy to visit family and friends there.

2. Pay off this house.

3. See my children happily married to wonderful husbands.

4. See John retired and taking up something FUN with me to fill our time.

5. Learn how to lead stained glass to make a panel to hang in the window in my bathroom.

6. I would love to make a significant, positive difference in the life of another family.

7. Get my license again.

8. Lose 25 lbs… and never find it again.

Now for those poor saps lucky chosen few!

Angie over at Big Hair Envy

Karen at The Rocking Pony

(Sometimes) Serendipitious Girl

Colleen at Wineplz

Claire at Claire and me

Roger at A Screed in Time

Moo at Moo’s Moo

Mike at Speak into the Mike

Now, I’ve got to get to everyone and let them know they’ve been, trapped in my evil scheme picked!

I was reading Moo’s Moo a little bit ago and she has an interesting meme idea.  She wants to know who our girl crushes are.  Well, I’ve got a few, and they are, I am sure you will agree, luscious women.

Go on over to Moo’s and check out her list as soon as you see these!

1. Audrey Hepburn

2. Tina Fey

3. Elizabeth Hurley

4. Mary Louise Parker

5. Candice Olson

6. Keira Knightly

7. And of course no hot girls list would be complete without…

Margaret Thatcher

BAHAHAHA!